


An Understanding

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-29
Updated: 2008-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the lads drink hot chocolate in Moscow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, St. Basil's Cathedral is a real place in Moscow, Russia. Anyway, it was a picture of the cathedral, in a church history textbook of mine, last term, which set this story off in the first place. I kept trying to move them to some place I have actually been to (Prague, maybe?) but they refused to shift. Mello is so damn stubborn, pft.

“It kind of feels like it’s looking at me,” Mello mused, motioning his mug of hot chocolate (laced with vodka) in the general direction of the cathedral which was looming up, just a little distance away, all brightly faded colours and oddly curved domes.

Near sipped at his own drink, a little more cautiously, and minus the alcohol, whilst studying the church over the rim of it. “I suppose,” he murmured slowly, “that the crescent shaped decorations could be perceived as eyes but—”

Mello rolled his own eyes, propped his chin on his hands (and his elbows on the table, making the whole thing rattle slightly), and laughed. “That’s the point, probably – they’re exactly like that – but—” he paused, the steam from his mug, and the warmth of his own breath, puffing between them in the Russian cold. “But don’t you think it’s more than that? You don’t ever see these great big God-Places and feel like…?” He rolled his eyes again, as though to undermine the value of his own sincerity, as though mocking himself could make it less important, and then downed the rest of his hot chocolate. It was _real_, and thick, and expensive, and made him purr like a kitten when he'd caught up the final drops, smudged at the corners of his mouth, with the tip of his deft tongue.

Near was still studying St. Basils. He looked doubtful. “It’s only a building, Mello. To me. An interesting building but nevertheless…”

Mello put his empty cup down and shoved it brusquely to one side, sending it stuttering close to the edge, and him utterly indifferent to its fate (it cost that much, he could break a damn cup if he felt like it). “You really are bloody hopeless, aren’t you?” he demanded, gloved hands shooting out across the table and catching Near’s face, one to each smooth cheek, making him look up, forcing him to gaze back at Mello.

Near gazed.

Mello chuckled low, as though sharing an in-joke with himself, or the universe, or perhaps even God. “Imagination, Near. Faith and imagination.”

Near leant his face into one of Mello's hands, then the other, like a cat rubbing with affection at someone's ankles. Then he snorted softly. “Excuse me if I’m incapable of believing that there’s an invisible, bearded old man somewhere, probably fuming right now about what you are about to do.”

“What I’m about to—? Ahhh.” Mello smirked, leant across the table and kissed Near, his hands tightening upon the other boy’s face, their lips already cold from the freezing wind but their mouths still warm and sweet and heady with chocolate. The edge of the table dug into Mello’s stomach even through his thick coat, and Near’s bare fingers were as cold as ice as they crept upwards from the back of Mello’s neck to tangle themselves amongst Mello’s hair.

Near had always had a fixation with hair.

Mello had never minded.

When they finally pulled apart again, all hot white breath and pinked cheeks, Mello moved his hands to Near's shoulders, grabbing hold tight and pulling him roughly around the table and into his lap, cocooning his arms around the slighter youth, and glaring visual daggers (which murmured promises of real knife-points) at the few passers-by who dared to give them openly disapproving stares.

Not that Near cared either way. He just snuggled his back in against the thick, soft fur of Mello’s coat and sighed happily. Mello settled his face against the younger boy’s soft hair (everything about Near was softness, even now, except his intellect), gazing at the church from over the whiteness, and letting the church gaze right back.

Near played with the cross hanging from Mello’s wrist.

“He and I have an understanding,” mused Mello, smiling crookedly into Near’s hair.

“Oh?” inquired Near, letting go of the crucifix almost reluctantly, and then sliding his hands, which were going slightly blue, hence necessitating the move, into the depths of the pockets on Mello’s coat.

“Yeah. I guess he figured that you were better than all the other things I could be doing.”

“The lesser of many evils?” inquired Near in that mischievous voice of his that Mello always found both intoxicating and perpetually unexpected, clearly amused by the innuendo he’d picked up in the blond’s words, and then rubbed his hands, firm and slow, against Mello’s thighs from inside his pockets. Mello’s breath hitched slightly despite himself, and Near wriggled distractingly in response, the little _tease_. Mello muttered something r-rated, and Near pulled his hands free from the pockets again, turned on Mello's lap so that they were face to face, and then deftly unzipped Mello's deliberately oversized coat with his small, still-cold fingers, and shifted so that he was tucked inside its warmth.

An elderly woman, all dressed in black, stopped to berate them but Mello just bared his teeth at her in a deadly grin; she made the sign of the cross and stomped off.

“We could be less obvious,” suggested Near, even as he snuggled in closer, lips grazing bare skin beneath Mello's left ear.

Mello grunted. “Why? I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks. Besides, people bitching at us is about the only time I get to wave a weapon around nowadays.”

“Part of that understanding with your old man upstairs?” whispered Near with warm, damp breath that made the blond tingle.

“Something like that,” admitted Mello, and went back to gazing at the church even as it gazed at him, its the golden not-eyes blinking in the pale light, capped with snow, and Near’s heart beating against his as surely as the sun would set and the sun would rise. “Like I say. We have an understanding…”


End file.
